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Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "Luke Wolf, a KDE developer, argues that PC-BSD might become a serious desktop OS contender in year 2020, since Linux so far has failed to grasp any serious market share. He writes, "Consider this: In the past 10 years has the distribution you run changed significantly in what it offers over other distributions? I think you'll find the answer is largely no. I do have to give a shout out to openSUSE for the OBS, but otherwise I've used my desktop in the same exact way that I have always used it within the continuity of distribution X,Y, or Z since I started using them. Distributions simply aren't focused on desktop features, they're leaving it up to the DEs to do so." He continues, "PC-BSD on the other hand in fitting with the BSD mindset of holistic solutions is focused on developing desktop features and is moving rapidly to implement them."

Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "The recent out of the blue TrueCrypt discontinuation got many people thinking what had happened to the project and inquiring minds suddenly found a hidden message in TrueCrypt's kind of awkward announcement, "(U)sing (T)rueCrypt (i)s (n)ot (s)ecure (a)s (i)t (m)ay (c)ontain (u)nfixed (s)ecurity (i)ssues", which means, "uti nsa im cu si". Translated from Latin it means, "If I wish to use the NSA". Even if this message is real and its author wanted to warn us about TrueCrypt use implications, it's still unclear whether he meant to avoid all existing TrueCrypt releases or only future ones."

Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "According to rumors Bill Gate's first day at his office in Redmond turned out to be a complete disaster mixed with ostensibly curse words no one had expected from him. He tried to install the Windows 8.1 upgrade but the updater failed continuously asking to reboot the PC. Microsoft's new C.E.O. Satya Nadella who came to help resolve the situation couldn't sort it out. In the end Gates said he would be returning to Windows 7 for the foreseeable future."

Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "The terrifying legislation that allows for Americans to be arrested, detained indefinitely, tortured and interrogated — without charge or trial — passed through the Senate on Thursday with an overwhelming support from 93 percent of lawmakers. Only seven members of the US Senate voted against the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, despite urging from the ACLU and concerned citizens across the country that the affects of the legislation would be detrimental to the civil rights and liberties of everyone in America. Under the bill, Americans can be held by the US military for terrorism-related charges and detained without trial indefinitely."Link to Original Source

Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "Ever since the invention of silicon transistor pundits have predicted that one day due to the laws of physics, companies which produce integrated circuits won't be able to shrink transistors, because at one point wires and gates become so small electrons will begin to stray freely and short circuit the chip. Intel has already plans for 11nm chips, but according to the current estimate the gate length of 5nm poses the ultimate limit of the silicon technology due to huge off-leakage current. So the question is, what happens next? Will the electronics industry and advancement in computing performance come to a screeching halt? Will we see the advent of photonic or quantum computers or something completely different? Or maybe computations will move to the cloud where CPUs will be plugged in on demand? Share your vision of the future."Link to Original Source

Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "Two Italians, Professor Sergio Focardi and Eng. Andrea A. Rossi, both of the University of Bologna, announced to the world that they have a cold fusion device capable of producing more than 10 kilowatts of heat power, while only consuming a fraction of that. This is the first public demonstration of a nickel-hydrogen fusion reactor capable of producing a few kilowatts of thermal energy. At its peak, it is capable of generating 15,000 watts with just 400 watts input required. Licensees are mentioned, with contracts in the USA and in Europe. Mass production should escalate in 2-3 years. Presently Rossi says they are manufacturing a 1 megawatt plant composed of 125 modules."Link to Original Source

Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "Electronic Frontier Foundation has published the white paper "How Unique is Your Browser" where they show that most Internet users are easily traceable and uniquely identifiable even with cookies support completely disabled. Also they released a web tool which shows your favourite web browser uniqueness, you can check it on you own by visiting this website. The only mitigating factor for this privacy vulnerability is disabling JavaScript and Flash plugin support for websites you don't trust (that can be accomplished by using NoScipt extension for Firefox web browser)."

Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "Recently scientists have reexamined a 100kg meteorite that hit Australia in 1969 and discovered that the rock which originated in the early days of the Solar System or even earlier contains a soup of highly complex organic chemistry. These findings further prove a theory of a primordial life possibly boosted by extra-terrestrial material. The researchers found 14,197 distinct elemental formulas. Taking into account the limitation of the instrument used, the researchers estimate that there may actually be more than 50,000."Link to Original Source

Artem Tashkinov (764309) writes "Maggie Jackson wrote a book in which she is proving that "compared to past generations, we are in fact less capable of quality analytical thinking, more ignorant about many issues, and more fragmented as a community." As a a result of infinite and distracting flow of information coming from the Internet, mail, TV and and medias "it becomes nearly impossible to utilize our capacity for sustained attention, and the implications are felt in business, the home, and society at large."

Jackson notes that the average worker switches tasks every three minutes and once interrupted takes nearly half an hour to go back to the original task. Families and friends find it increasingly difficult to meet face-to-face and even more difficult to do so without interruption or willful multitasking. News segments bombard us with superficially simple pieces of information. We have essentially been ushered into a world of constant distraction in which reflective thinking and undivided attention (single-tasking) has become exceedingly rare.